UN seeks to stop South Sudan atrocities from sparking wider war

GENEVA (Reuters) – The international community can stop a “Rwanda-like” genocide in South Sudan if it immediately deploys a 4,000-strong protection force and sets up a court to prosecute atrocities, the head of a U.N. human rights commission said on Wednesday.

“South Sudan stands on the brink of an all-out ethnic civil war, which could destabilise the entire region,” Yasmin Sooka told an emergency session of the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva.

U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad al Hussein said the African Union must quickly set up the court “with a strong focus on command responsibility for atrocities”.

(Reporting by Tom Miles; editing by Stephanie Nebehay)